Due to federal funding cuts, the Bureau of Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, a division of the state's Department of Health and Senior Services, has discontinued its West Nile Virus dead bird testing program.

Tim Hare

Due to federal funding cuts, the Bureau of Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, a division of the state's Department of Health and Senior Services, has discontinued its West Nile Virus dead bird testing program.

The notification was recently issued by the Audrain City-County Health Unit. But Kevin Lowrance, administrator for ACCHU, said the program served its primary purpose.

"Once we identified that West Nile was in the bird population, it really doesn't make any practical and public health sense to continue to sample any more on a one-on-one basis, because we know it's here," he said. However, West Nile virus is a communicable disease, and if incidence is seen in humans it is still properly acted upon by appropriate health agencies.

In 2006, Missouri identified 62 cases of West Nile virus in humans, including one nonfatal case in Audrain County.

Transmitted by mosquito bites, the virus often is most evident among birds.

"We did do bird tests," Lowrance said. "And we ended up having one (human case) eventually in the county, and that just really put us on notice that West Nile is here. We knew from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) tracking that West Nile was in St. Louis, and then all of a sudden Audrain County had one, and then next month you found one in Kansas City. And then it just worked its way across the continental United States."

Lowrance noted that "we'll start getting a bunch of calls when the heat starts to come on, because people start to find more (dead) birds, and that's just mother nature at work."

In 2006, he said, "there was a shortage of a certain type of insect which I think blue jays were eating, and a number of blue jays ended up dying. And somebody -- I think it was the University of Missouri -- said this type of insect, some kind of aphid or something similar, had not reproduced properly in the quantity that needed to be sufficient, so these birds were starving."

The administrator said birds also die from many other causes, including exhaustion, predators, collisions with buildings, even "kids with BB guns."

However, he stated unusual scenarios could warrant suspicion.

"A couple years back, they had a flock of birds that were found in a field ... north of Columbia, and I know they were worried about some kind of illness."

But what initially seemed troubling proved benign as investigators determined that the situation was not cause for concern.

"It turned out to be one of those downdrafts that ... pilots are worried about -- a wind downdraft. And it actually forced this flock of birds into the ground and killed a whole bunch of them."

So far this year in Missouri, there have been no reported instances of West Nile virus in humans. But barring development of a vaccine, and dependent upon one's view of the legitimacy of global warming, West Nile virus is unlikely to disappear anytime soon within the human population.

In an article by science writer Sharon Begley in a recent edition of Newsweek, she stated, "In a greenhouse world, tropical diseases will expand their range and their prevalence. Alternating floods and droughts -- the pattern that comes with climate change -- provide perfect conditions for mosquitoes that carry malaria, West Nile and dengue fever."

The article cites Paul Epstein, associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, who says global warming makes mosquitoes bite more, apparently because it gets their reproductive juices flowing. In the article, Epstein also says disease-causing microbes transmitted by mosquitoes mature more quickly with global warming.

Symptoms of West Nile virus are not readily apparent, at least in its early stages, Lowrance said. "Initially, it would be pretty innocuous."

According to the CDC, symptoms of West Nile virus include headache, high fever, neck stiffness, stupor, disorientation, coma, tremors, convulsions, muscle weakness and paralysis. It is estimated that about 1 in 150 people infected will develop a more severe form of disease. Serious illness can occur among any age group; however, people older than 50 or people whose immune systems have been compromised are at the highest risk to become severely ill when infected with the virus.

The CDC also notes that most people (about 80 percent) who are infected with West Nile virus will not develop any type of illness. The incubation period in humans for the illness is two to 15 days, says the CDC.

The wisest course of action is for individuals to protect themselves by minimizing exposure to mosquitoes. Recommendations include:

- Wearing clothing with long sleeves and long pants near infected areas.

- Avoiding areas with dense woods and standing water.

- Using an insect repellent which contains DEET.

- Keeping doors and windows shut, and fixing any screens that may have holes to prevent mosquitoes from entering a home.

- Applying new weather stripping to any doors or windows which may have gaps which otherwise would allow insects to enter.

Further information is available at the following Web sites:

- www.acchu.org

- www.dhss.mo.gov/WestNileVirus

- www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/westnile

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